To better their ability to perfect a mix, sound engineers sit at a giant board outside of a recording studio where it's whisper quiet. And to avoid having to keep running in and out of a studio to perfect their mic placement, someone's slapped a microphone on a remote controlled RC toy tank that promises to make a sound engineer's job a heck of a lot easier.

Besides a menacing all-black paint job and the addition of a standard microphone mount, the Tank Tone is pretty much just a standard RC toy tank. Its creators even left the functional BB-firing turret intact, letting producers harass their talent from a safe distance. The tank's rechargeable battery provides for up to an hour of runtime, and up to three of them can be controlled in a studio at any given time.

You'd probably want to avoid operating and repositioning the tanks during a recording session because the plastic drivetrain and electric motor aren't quite whisper quiet. But apparently the $129 tank can't actually be heard during an overzealous drum solo, or other particularly loud performances. [Tone Tank via Gizmag]